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Interesting. I've got a couple of points or questions to put forth if anyone cares to share. Did the abolishment of slavery in the United States directly lead

by s_m_t 10y ago

Interesting. I've got a couple of points or questions to put forth if anyone cares to share. Did the abolishment of slavery in the United States directly lead to any sort of economic depression? From one perspective they were eliminating what the article says was 16% of household wealth at the time, compared to 10 trillion dollars today, so you might expect a corresponding hit to the economy, but whatever productive capacity there was in the form of the slaves labor still existed, more or less, after they were freed. So to non-slave owners it might not effect them at all economically (maybe it might help them in some way, perhaps slavery drags down the market value of labor?). This, I think, is different from the question of oil. When you abolish the use of oil the oil doesn't go on to produce on its own accord. Any economic gain you once had from oil would presumably vanish completely. And it wouldn't just be the oil owners that lose out, I'm pretty sure I have more wealth because of the economies use of oil even though I don't own any shares of oil companies.

labster 10y ago
If you abolish the use of fossil fuels, then you get other economic benefits. A portion of 5 million people who would have died every year due to air pollution would continue to produce economically. Those who would have been sickened by respiratory problems instead produce more labor. And we spend less resources treating those illnesses. And then you spend less money on infrastructure to protect against global warming related disasters. And you eliminate the losses in productivity and infrastructure after global warming-related natural disasters. And then, if renewable becomes cheap enough, it will be cheaper than extraction, making the oil near worthless (excluding the more difficult to replace uses like metallurgical coal and petroleum based plastics). The problem is that the extrinsic costs of fossil fuel consumption are never really linked directly to the extraction industry. If you could do that, well, that pile of 10 trillion dollars starts to look a lot smaller.

by s_m_t 10y ago

labster 10y ago

If you abolish the use of fossil fuels, then you get other economic benefits. A portion of 5 million people who would have died every year due to air pollution would continue to produce economically. Those who would have been sickened by respiratory problems instead produce more labor. And we spend less resources treating those illnesses. And then you spend less money on infrastructure to protect against global warming related disasters. And you eliminate the losses in productivity and infrastructure after global warming-related natural disasters. And then, if renewable becomes cheap enough, it will be cheaper than extraction, making the oil near worthless (excluding the more difficult to replace uses like metallurgical coal and petroleum based plastics). The problem is that the extrinsic costs of fossil fuel consumption are never really linked directly to the extraction industry. If you could do that, well, that pile of 10 trillion dollars starts to look a lot smaller.